Author| He Jie Editor| Zhang Yixiao
Overnight, the reader "ceiling" Kindle slipped from the top.
On January 4, the large-scale shortage of the Kindle on JD.com caused a heated discussion, and there were rumors that the Kindle may have to withdraw from the Chinese market.
"Phoenix WEEKLY Finance" reporter searched on the e-commerce platform and found that the official flagship store of Amazon Kindle Tmall has closed at the end of October 2021 and has not yet recovered. On Jingdong's self-operated flagship store, except for a low-end model, Kindle products are out of stock.
According to the Beijing News, citing multiple independent sources within Amazon China, the company's Kindle hardware team was dismissed in November last year.
On January 5, the customer service of the Kindle Jingdong self-operated store responded to the "Phoenix WEEKLY Finance" reporter: "At present, the lack of goods is caused by the lack of chips by the manufacturer, and Kindle will not withdraw from the Chinese market." Out-of-stock goods will arrive one after another, and the specific time is uncertain. ”
In response to the News of Kindle's withdrawal from the Chinese market, Amazon responded that we are committed to serving Chinese consumers. Consumers can purchase Kindle devices through third-party online and offline retailers. The response also pointed out that some models of the Kindle e-book reader are currently sold out in the Chinese market.
Since it first appeared in the Chinese market on June 7, 2013, It has been more than 8 years since the Kindle entered China. It was once admired by a large number of elites and changed the reading habits of many people.
However, with the passage of time, on the reader track, Kindle is no longer leading the way, and a number of domestic brands such as Xiaomi, Palm Reading, and iFLYTEK have shown their prominence in the market.
The Kindle, on the other hand, has been transformed from a "reading artifact" supported by elites to a "bubble noodle artifact" of Di Si.
The huge gap makes people wonder: what has happened in the past 8 years? Who moved the Kindle's cheese?
In order to enter China, he has exhausted "all his strength"
Most people buy a Kindle to read, but after buying it, they find out that buying a Kindle is not the same as reading.
Xiao Li had bought two different models of Kindles, only a year apart, but both Kindles ended up "passing on to others."
In March 2017, Xiao Li bought the first Kindle, Paper white3, and hoped that it would become his "reading artifact" and help him "break through ten thousand books". However, it took less than 5 months, because its "screen is too small, the response is too slow, and it is very troublesome to label", so I am too lazy to use it again. Just in time, the aunt came to play at home and gave it to her.
After 4 months with The Paper White3, unable to bear the "days of not reading", Xiao Li bought a Kindle with a larger screen size. As soon as the freshness passed, the tiredness of e-book reading rose again.
As it turns out, the Kindle is indeed not his "dish."
"It's a 'stupid' commodity, not as delicate and beautiful as the iPad. It is true that some people use it very well, but for me, if you read, if you have money or buy a book, the most direct and most convenient, doodle and draw directly with a pen, and do not have to endure the 'residual shadow', in addition to moving a little effort. ”
It didn't take long for the Kindle to be given away by Xiao Li in the third month of "eating ashes".
The Kindle, which was twice "abandoned" by Xiao Li, had just entered the Chinese market for a few years.
June 7, 2013, was the first day of Kindle's entry into China, and before that, many Chinese netizens had waited in various post bars and forums, calling on Kindle to enter China.
In order to enter China, Amazon and Bezos have long had layouts.
As early as July 2010, some media found that Amazon had begun to recruit Kindle supplier management positions in Beijing, triggering discussions about Kindle's imminent entry into China. But in September, Bezos said through Amazon's official response that the Kindle reader and the corresponding content have not entered China, and hopes that there will be plans for the future.
In the second half of 2011, Amazon visited CITIC Publishing House, China's largest commercial book publishing company. They introduced the team, concept, business model, and took the initiative to understand the situation of CITIC; a few days after the sales in China, Bai Juyi, then vice president of Amazon China, visited the management of the Commercial Press to discuss copyright cooperation.
At that time, Sun Shuxue, director of the Digital Publishing Center of the Commercial Press, commented: "Bai Juyi knows more about China's affairs, and the localization work is OK." ”
Before the Kindle entered China, e-book reader manufacturers led by Hanwang have always regarded it as a "luxury", and around 2004, the gross profit margin of Hanwang products was as high as 50%-60%, which was 3-4 times that of computer manufacturers such as Lenovo.
But when The Kindle entered China, Bezos's low-price or even loss-making hardware selling strategy directly overwhelmed a number of domestic hardware manufacturers such as Hanwang. By 2013, Hanwang's gross profit margin was only about 10%.
Around 2010, Amazon already had more than 600,000 e-book, magazine and blog subscriptions, while requiring domestic publishers to give the lowest price pricing on the Kindle channel to attract the attention of Chinese readers.
In addition to formal copyright and low-price strategies, Amazon also strives to open up the Chinese market and adapt to Chinese readers from the functional and cultural attributes of the Kindle.
Functionally, in 2014, Kindle launched a prompt function for English new words, and supported note sharing WeChat or Weibo to improve the user experience; in 2017, Amazon cooperated with Migu Reading, a large online literature platform at the time, to launch a customized version of Kindle X, including Kindle reading and Migu reading two systems, in order to change the inherent image of its own "deep reading tool".
Culturally, Amazon China has used other consumer electronics as an example to prove to its U.S. headquarters that white is very popular with Chinese users. In March 2015, the white Kindle was sought after being listed in China, which also confirmed the correctness of this initiative; later, Amazon changed the color mix and launched multiple color matching products such as fog blue, smoke purple and jade blue inspired by traditional Chinese pigments. In addition, in 2018, Amazon also cooperated with the Forbidden City to launch the Forbidden City Cultural Edition e-reader.
Amazon's efforts have indeed not been in vain, and the Kindle was once unique.
According to the data, from 2013 to 2018, Kindle e-readers have sold millions of units in China; China has become Amazon's largest market for global Kindle device sales; and the total number of books in Kindle China e-bookstores is nearly 700,000, an increase of nearly 10 times over 2013.
And, as sales of Chinese books on the Kindle have risen, the roles of publishers and Amazon have changed subtly: Amazon used to find a publisher, and then it became a publisher to ask Amazon to boost new books. On Amazon's website, there have been authors and publishers who have racked their brains to get praise for their works, and more authors have directly made their works popular on Amazon, no longer looking at the faces of publishers and retailers.
In April 2015, Amazon Kindle's "A Song of Ice and Fire" style debuted on Wangfujing Pedestrian Street in Beijing.
The left hand is soaking noodles, and the right hand is eating ash
A momentary lead does not mean always leading. The Kindle is like a pebble, stirring up the waves of the Chinese reader market, but it is about to be drowned by this wave.
"Bubble noodle artifact" is probably the first "out of the circle" of the Kindle.
In March 2019, Amazon official micro launched an advertising copy, a Kindle was covered on a box of bubble noodles, next to the text showed "cover Kindle, noodles are more fragrant." There was even a "countdown 5min" set with the Kindle's built-in clock function.
This wave of marketing with a "self-blackening" style really caused a wave of sensation at the time. In addition to netizens shouting "brain hole open" with the trend, some people have specially taken out three different models of Kindles and three bowls of noodles with different flavors, and made a serious video of "which Kindle cover noodles are the most fragrant" on the Internet.
Looking back now, Kindle's self-black marketing has become a reality, and users really feel that using Kindle bubble noodles is more practical than reading books.
The essential idea of the Kindle is to let the reader pick up the Kindle in more scenes. Ironically, in 2018, some netizens posted that kindle has become the one with the most "eating ash" among the major digital products in their hands.
The number one reason is that the Kindle is "not durable."
To read the function into the market Kindle, the use of black and white electronic ink screen, the advantage of this screen is low power consumption and long battery life, while minimizing the pressure on the eyes, the screen display is completely driven by voltage, the screen itself does not emit light, is the closest to paper in all electronic products, but also the closest to the paper book reading experience.
But this type of screen is really "too expensive", and the price of a screen is almost equivalent to the price of half a Kindle. And once the screen is bumped a little, it will leave an irreparable spot of light. In addition, there are inevitable problems of splashing screens and skipping screens, so that as long as the Kindle is slightly damaged, most users will automatically throw it into the corner to "eat ash".
After briefly leading the way with a low-price strategy, the Kindle soon encountered a new wave of domestic readers and "fancy innovation".
Let's look at domestic production first. Palm Reading and iFLYTEK launched the world's first color ink screen reader on the same day in 2020, which is a big blessing for many reader users: reading picture charts is finally no longer plagued by black and white screens; screen size has more choices: the 5.84-inch Hisense A5 can unlock more use scenarios like mobile phones; the 7.8-inch Millet multi-look, taking into account light and large screens; 10.3, 13.3-inch aragonite readers are more convenient for paperless office.
On the left is iFLYTEK C1 color screen reader, and on the right is the palm reading C6 pro color ink screen reader
Look at the Kindle again. In 2015, KPW3 was released, compared to KPW2, in addition to the CPU, the screen resolution has been greatly improved; in 2018, KPW4 was released, only the appearance has been updated, more waterproof, and there are no substantial changes. In September 2021, KPW5 was released. Amazon seems to have heard the voice of the majority of users: the USB-C interface appeared, and the screen size rose from 6 inches in the previous generation to 6.8 inches. But this kind of "small fight" and "not exciting enough" change is difficult to touch the nerves of Chinese consumers. As netizens left a message: "The bubble noodles are covered more tightly" and "After half a year, idle fish will see".
When everyone else changes and the Kindle doesn't change, it's hard to continue to be a must or preferred option.
Some users poked at the embarrassing situation of the current Kindle: "Many people buy Kindle not to read, but just to satisfy the 'I am reading Oh' self-placebo." ”
Another reason is the Kindle's own single function. As smartphones and Pads dominate the electronics market with rich functions, electronic products that integrate social, video, photography, reading, navigation and other functions are more favored by users.
Many users with professional reading needs, such as graduate students, professors, etc. are more inclined to use iPads, larger screens, faster refresh rates, richer note-taking software, simpler PDF imports, and richer book resources. This is undoubtedly a strong opponent for the Kindle.
"Phoenix WEEKLY Finance" reporter comparison found that a basic latest iPad in Jingdong price is 2499 yuan, and if you choose to buy the previous year's old model or choose to buy a second-hand iPad price will be lower. The price of THE latest flagship OASIS3 of the Kindle on JD.com is 2899, which is enough to buy a basic iPad.
"A friend once gave his nephew a Kindle and an iPad, and when he came home for the New Year, he saw his nephew playing games with an iPad, and Kindle didn't know where to go." Some users indicate so.
Kindle is definitely not successful in China?
From the launch of the first generation of Kindle by Amazon in 2007 to the current Paperwhite, oasis and other series of products, with the development of the times, kindle has gone through nearly 15 years.
The first thing that was changed by the Kindle was the reading habits of young Chinese people.
Gao Chen is a loyal user of the Kindle, and she has used the Kindle for nearly two and a half years. "I now read less paper books, I could read about 1-2 books in the previous month, but after buying the Kindle, paper books are almost not much to read," Gao Chen said, "Kindle is very convenient to use, you can carry it with you when taking the train, enjoy reading time anytime and anywhere, you can also use it to read books before going to bed, you don't have to rely on mobile phones all the time, which is conducive to developing good habits." ”
According to the 2020 China Digital Reading Report, the scale of China's digital reading users in 2020 reached 494 million, with a growth rate of 5.56%, and the per capita number of e-books read was 9.1. In contrast, the per capita reading volume of paper books was 6.2, a decrease of 2.6 books compared with the previous year.
However, the emergence of Microblogs, short videos and smart phones has made kindles quickly ignored by users in terms of content ecology and terminal application value, until they are on the verge of being eliminated.
"The Kindle is less immersive to use, and I am sometimes disturbed by other sounds from the outside." Gao Chen said.
Another former Kindle user told Phoenix WEEKLY Finance: "The current short video is too attractive, every day to open the vibrato can not stop, weibo hot search is the world is not strange." When I lie in bed at night, I just want to brush Weibo and Douyin, and the Kindle I bought back is placed in a corner of the house, as if it is an ornament, just occasionally open it to take a look. ”
As one of the carriers of electronic reading, Kindle has promoted the development of digital reading to a certain extent. Amazon has always taken the book business as the entry point, based on the Kindle e-bookstore and series of products, to build the Kindle ecosystem, Amazon's cooperation with the traditional publishing industry has always been a model for the digital content industry profit model.
However, the content ecology built by Amazon and the cooperation with publishing houses after several twists and turns are now affected by short videos and consumed by the leisure mode of mobile terminals. The time and patience users spend reading faces unprecedented challenges.
According to statistics on the development of The Internet in China, as of June 2021, the number of short video users has reached 880 million, equivalent to 87.8% of the scale of Chinese netizens, and short videos are becoming the hottest leisure method for the whole people.
Not only that, but Amazon's own situation in China is not optimistic. In April 2021, Amazon's wave of "declaring war on 50,000 Chinese sellers" caused public opinion to be hotly discussed, at that time, a large number of Chinese sellers suffered from Amazon's "store closure" treatment, the reason is related to the seller's praise.
It's hard to say who is right and who is wrong with this wave of operations, but Amazon's move has clearly hurt itself a lot in the Chinese market.
Xiao Li has moved the idea of a reader again in recent months, but after a long time comparing multiple products, he still gave up. Xiao Li finally concluded: "Instead of tangling with the reader, why don't I buy an iPad, I can watch any resources" "The so-called immersive reading is very buggy, I don't like to read, he can't read what he gives, and it has little to do with the 'distraction' caused by hardware." ”
"Amazon's Kindle is absolutely not successful in China." More than a decade ago, an e-commerce tycoon predicted this.
Now, this prophecy seems to be about to come true.